The Grimm Dossier

Chapter 35 - The Witch

England, West Coast
Devonshire, Dartmoor
St. George, Skirrid Inn
5 November 1898, 6:11 pm

Benjamin stared. He could do nothing else, for long heartbeats his whole body was frozen. The room was bathed in the dim candlelight, which now made its way unhindered through the open door into the corridor. The window was still open, the curtains hung heavy from the rain on the poles and a puddle floated on the floor. But no one paid any attention to it. Not even Ben. His gaze lingered on the grotesque scene.

Dangling from a roof beam on a fixed rope, was the corpse. Candles had been placed everywhere, illuminating the scene as if it were one of the macabre freak shows on the grimy streets of London. The wind pushed into the room from outside and flowers had been placed everywhere. Some were fresh, others already faded, and they exuded a nauseating mixture of different shades of sweet smells. Flowery, that already withering life and the unmistakable stench of decay that now couldn't begin to hide underneath. But despite the sickeningly sweet nuance and the damp breeze, he was glad of it - because otherwise, he would probably have thrown up immediately.

The rope creaked and strained, holding the weight of the dead body all by itself. Mrs Andrew's neck was covered in dark marks, the rope wrapped around her neck like an ugly collar. Her eyes were milky, wide open and empty of life. The dead woman still wore the black dress from the evening of her arrival. Flies crawled all over the dead body, over her face and hung from the ceiling. They buzzed around the room like an orchestra of their own.

A large, wooden marital bed lined part of the room. It was surrounded by heaped bunches of flowers and thick bundles of strong-smelling herbs that had also been hung from the ceiling beams, probably to mask the smell.

Ben's voice broke at the reality before his eyes. The image was so unbelievable, so repulsive, so grotesque and sick that it just wouldn't seep into his mind.

There in the bed lay the slowly rotting corpse of Mr Andrews. He was completely naked, his eyes already eaten away by the advancing rot and instead, two pebbles jammed into the black sockets of his skull. Two eyes had been painted on them, staring as blankly into space as the gaze of his hanged spouse. His lips were slightly parted and torn open. His fingers were already discoloured from black and brown to above the joints. His skin possessed a hideous white-grey and in many places greenish tinge and on his arms and the man's neck the bumps of decay showed. A fly settled buzzing on his forehead and climbed over the putrid face. A bowl of water and a rag stood beside the bed, and two empty bottles of coloured glass lay tossed aside. Probably perfume from the former madame.

The young girl got out of the Andrews' marital bed with trembling legs in an eerie silence. The bedclothes rustled, and the sheet drew folds all across the bed to the slender hands that tried to cover an almost naked body with it. Elly wore her hair carefully coiffed. Benjamin would have had to be blind to miss that it was the same one Mrs Andrew's body wore. Apparently, Elly had wanted to imitate Madame and look more grown up. Then Elly dropped the sheet, which sank to the floor with a sigh and remained there like freshly fallen snow that had slid off a mountainside. A silk-thin negligee lay over the girlish body. It reached just to her thighs and exposed the feminine triangle between her thighs far from any decency. 

Nausea drove the stew down his throat with a gag reflex. The groan he had heard... "Elly?" The Doctor's voice broke at the sight, inwardly hoping it was a hideous nightmare.